1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a styrene copolymer having silyl groups.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Styrene polymers having substituents, in particular, functional groups are useful as a functional polymer. Up to the present time, styrene polymers having functional groups have often been produced by copolymerizing styrene compounds with unsaturated monomers having functional groups or by reacting styrene polymers with saturated or unsaturated compounds having functional groups. For the production of high molecular ionic materials or high molecular chelate materials, for example, there are employed methods comprising reacting styrene polymers with halomethyl ethers to introduce the halomethyl groups into the aromatic rings of the styrene polymers and further reacting with compounds having other functional groups to introduce the desired functional groups.
However, these methods are effective for the purpose of imparting functional groups to styrene polymers, but it is difficult to selectively introduce a functional group into a specified position of the aromatic ring of a styrene polymer by these methods and the variety of functional groups to be introduced are limited.
"Journal of Organic Chemistry" Vol. 41, No. 24, page 3877 (1976) describes a method comprising subjecting a cross-linked polystyrene to lithiation with n-butyllithium and then reacting with various reagents to introduce substituents into the aromatic rings, in which the lithiation takes place at both the meta- and para-positions of the aromatic ring in a m-/p- ratio of 2/1. In this case, the reaction needs heating and proceeds with a lithiation efficiency of only about 23%. Furthermore, the above described reference describes another method comprising brominating a cross-linked polystyrene in the presence of a thallium (III) salt, reacting with n-butyllithium in the same manner as described above and then reacting with reagents in the same manner as described above to introduce substituents into the para-position of the aromatic rings.
In the prior art method as described above, it is difficult to introduce a substituent selectively and effectively into a specified position of the aromatic ring, in particular, the para-position thereof and complicated procedures are required.